Josh Meltzer '95 Praised for Saving Three in Lake Superior Rip Tide

July 3, 2012

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Media outlets around the state of Minnesota are praising former Carleton College swim team captain Josh Meltzer, Class of 1995, with saving three people on Monday, who were caught in a dangerous rip tide off the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth.

The Duluth News-Tribune reports that Meltzer pulled two women and a pre-teen girl out of Lake Superior after they were overcome by a rip current at Park Point.

“The girl was having trouble swimming,” Meltzer told the News-Tribune. “She couldn’t make it out there. We were basically in the rip current. I grabbed her and brought her back and immediately turned around and went back out. There was an adult and a 10- to 12-year-old girl. The girl was going under. She didn’t have the strength to stay above water and whenever a wave came she just went under.”

Duluth Fire Department's Assistant Chief Erik Simonson reports that one of the women was taken to an area hospital for taking in a lot of water and exhaustion.

An award-winning photojournalist, Meltzer teaches photojournalism at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. His wife is a native of Moose Lake, Minn., and the family had returned to northern Minnesota to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday. The couple has a 2-year-old son, Gus. Meltzer reports that Gus has already taken a six-week-long infant survival swimming class.